Orlando Day 1

Woke up to a sunny day and luckily my room is on the opposite side of the building to the morning sun. All us Beer Convention people are staying in Tower One which is 10 floors with 50 rooms on each floor. Each tower has a concierge in the tower lobby which is on top of the reception in the resort lobby. I will post a few photos of the resort in a few days time when I get a chance to walk around a bit.

Caught up with Barry and Leanne and headed to the local 7-11 store which is only about 300 yards from our hotel. We checked out the food situation and got some tubs of cereal to have for breakfast back at our rooms. We then arranged to meet at 10.00am.

I had read on the net before leaving home that there was a bus called the I-Ride which went from the Orlando Premium Centre (a huge factory outlet for all the top clothing brands) to downtown Orlando. I had spoken to our tower concierge and had arranged for a taxi to come to take us there. It was a 12 dollar cab ride which was quite good.

We then went to find the I-Ride bus which was three dollars for unlimited rides all day on that bus. I was boiling hot with very high humidity and we found a shady spot to stand to wait for the bus. I was reading the bus route as the bus turned up and we were waiting to board. At that exact moment I read that the bus only went from one factory outlet to another one closer to downtown and told everyone to not board the bus. Just as this happened a bus went past that had Downtown Orlando written on its destination board. Of course it had gone past by the time I realised what it was.

Leanne, Barry and Ray waiting for the bus in the shade.

We then had to wait about 15 minutes for the next downtown bus to come along. When we went to get on the driver told us that the all day fare for the whole bus network was $4 so we all purchased tickets. Once we had purchased the tickets the driver said “where are you going” we replied we were going to downtown Orlando and the driver was very surprised saying ‘’ why would you want to go there, where is nothing to see”. Anyway we caught the bus anyway and it took us along International Drive which is a very long road lined with motels, mini golf courses, water slide parks, shopping centres etc, completely set up for the tourists.

After that the bus set off into some local suburban areas closer to the centre of Orlando. Well what a difference. It was like going on a set of CSI Miami into the poor areas. Small houses made of concrete blocks, just flat walls, no features to them, set right on the footpath, not painted but looking about 30 years old. Most houses had a few people sitting in plastic chairs out the front of them at 11am just staring blankly out at the world. Near parks and underpasses there were groups of men just standing around doing nothing wasting their lives! When we got to the central bus terminal we were right on the side of the city area which were just large skyscrapers but looking at the locality map it showed no landmarks that looked interesting so we decided to head back out of the city. Ray suggested we go to a place called Florida Mall which is a large shopping mall like we have in Australia, with all the large department stores and smaller specialty shops.

We checked that we could get a bus from Florida Mall back to the Orlando Premium Centre later so we were close to the hotel. We could so off we went. The bus routes are well marked and there are plenty of route maps available on the buses that help you plan your trip. The buses have a rack on the front of them that you can put your pushbike onto when you travel.

Also we passed a gas station and the shop was called Kangaroo Express
In the land of the free .... and McDonalds
At Florida Mall we firstly got some lunch then set out shopping. Ray bought some playing cards and I got a Guinness White Ball for a pool table. We then went into this giant M&M’s store which was at the end of the mall. As I collect M&M’s I had a ball getting some large figures and also some smaller key rings and other souvenirs.

My toy shop - KB Toys
We then got another bus back to the Orlando Premium Outlet where we also went shopping, I got a tee shirt and Barry got some shirts from the Nike store. From there we got a taxi back to the motel. I went to the bar to get a drink and sit and watch some baseball and Brian & Rhonda from Port Macquarie had arrived. We sat and caught up on our travels as they had been away for 2 weeks travelling in New York and surrounding areas in a hire car.

When Barry & Leanne came back up with Ray we decided to go to a Chinese Buffet restaurant which was across the road from the resort for dinner. The food was o.k. as you would expect from a buffet. Then we came back to the tower block and people had had already set the rooms up for night trading. What you do if you want is prop open the door of your room (wooden door stops are specially supplied) and people walk the corridors and come into the room to look at your trading gear and either trade or buy the items. Otherwise you just go around and walk into the rooms and meet the other collectors. Tonight (Monday) there were only five rooms open but tomorrow night there will be plenty of rooms open as people start to arrive for Thursday’s opening.


During the night I managed to pick up some coke cans for people back home but also met about 40 collectors.

After that I went back to the bar to get a drink before heading off to bed and while I was there Bob and his wife Cia from Adelaide arrived at the resort. I showed them to their room and showed them the lay of the land and then we went for a drink.

The resort has a 24 hour deli where you can get all types of food, Breakfast cereal, fruit, salads, hot meals, pizza’s and beer, wine etc. While we were having a drink two more of our group showed up. Doug & Keith T from Sydney arrived having had some delays in their internal flights in the USA. After we finished our drink we showed Doug & Keith T to their rooms and then I went to bed as it was by then about 1.30am.